Tel'kai Revolution
The Tel'kai Revolution began in 1267 PE according to the Nadaan Calendar and is known as the major cause of the collapse of the Catavere Empire. Causation When the Tel'kai started cropping up around Catavere, they're was a lot of racist sentiment towards them. They were the lowest tier of the caste system and were often disregarded as animals by the Blessed Races around Karindor. Though many Tel'kai accepted this lot in life or silently opposed their treatment, some openly opposed the unjustness of their position. It wasn't until the winter of 1267 PE that the majority of the Tel'kai began violently protesting the caste system. In what would later be called Durnwaste, in the city of Tarstle, the guard captain and Silver Elf Bratya Elveyr conspired to cleanse the city of the Tel'kai. He organized a group of guards and townspeople to gather all of the Tel'kai in the Tarstle Square. After declaring their sins he had sixteen Tel'kai beggars and slaves slaughtered in the square. The other Tel'kai in the city who had avoided being arrested attacked Elveyr and the murderers. Amidst the fighting, the other guards and law-keepers jumped in and sided with Elveyr. The Tel'kai were driven from the city. While the Tel'kai of Tarstle were in hiding, one man, Eltorio Hsufel, rose to lead them. He organized a revolution way out in the desert where they hid. he brought Lett mercenaries hiding in the desert and in the forest to the southeast to him and soon had a force over a hundred strong. Shortly before the end of 1276 the Tel'kai returned to Tarstle and stormed the castle. They took the city and killed all of the elven guardsmen and enslaved the elven citizens. They stuck Elveyr's head on a pike and stood it before the city gates, along with those of the other Tel'kai-murderers. They stormed the armory and took all the weapons. They burned elven shops and homes and made the elves as low as they had been. This was the beginning of the revolution. History When the Tel'kai took over Tarstle, Emperor Mespite sent the Catavere Legion to take back the city and quell the rebellion. When they arrived they found something very different than they were expecting. An army of Tel'kai and Lett from all over were amassing around Tarstle. Tribes from all around Catavere and outside were marching to the fields outside the city, preparing to defend the new Tel'kai territory, and possible gain more. Hsufel had sent word around to all the major Tel'kai settlements and to the places where the Lett still lived in Catavere as a call to arms for any of them that had a bone to pick with those who were in power. Thousands had answered the call. The meager century of soldiers sent to the city was vastly outnumbered by the continuously growing Lett and Tel'kai. The Legionaries wanted to retreat, but their centurion, Trajan Avidius, demanded they stay. An ambassador was sent into the city to talk to the Hsufel and the rebel leaders.After half an hour, the ambassador's head soared over the walls, launched from a catapult, into the Legion's camp. And so began the Battle of Lake Gantua. Though the Legion made a fair sized dent in their numbers, they were eventually overwhelmed and the Army of Tarstle defeated the Catavere Legion along the shore of Lake Gantua in the early spring of 1277 PE. The Tel'kai began to rapidly expand their power to the north. Within six months they had taken all of what is now Durnwaste and Surrelia, as well as half of Srrelketta. The Catavere soldiers in those areas resisted but for the most part, Mespite had given up. He practically handed his territory over to the Tel'kai. He couldn't believe that 1,000 years of peace were ruined during his rule. His citizens were angry, and the Legion saw his incompetence. A second civil war broke out in Catavere: the people and the a large portion of the military against the king and his loyalists in the military. At the start of the Tel'kai Revolution, many of the gods chose sides in the fighting. The goddess of the sky, for instance, sided with the Tel'kai. When they attacked what was once a dwarven city during the Battle of Logra Hill and the dwarven air force led an attack on the Tel'kai, the sky goddess, who the dwarves worshiped, removed their wings mid-air, and their entire military fell to their deaths. This day came to be known as the Dark Day in dwarven history. This is why dwarves no longer have wings. The interference of the Elder Gods in the war brought other major changed as well. Euphrus, god of time and husband of Elensure, gave the elves the gift of long life so as to increase the length of their peak in life, so they could fight longer. Augurum, god of magic, gifted the elves, as well as some races of men, with the ability to harness the power of the heavenly bodies to do their bidding, and so magic was brought into the mortal realm. Laos, one of te youngest gods, who pitied the Lett and Tel'kai, gifted them with a twisted form of Augurum's magic, a magic drawn from nature.